When pregnancy cravings allow women to ignore injunctions

Want some pickles with your ice cream? Food fads seem to go hand in hand with pregnancy and are the subject of many unfounded beliefs. Baptiste Beaulieu, general practitioner, author and columnist, delved into the topic at the microphone of France Inter. According to him, cravings for pregnancy are mainly physiological and psychological.

What if pregnancy finally allowed women to release the pressure on their bodies by allowing them to eat the way they really want?

Food cravings and cravings, this mysterious phenomenon

While the smell and taste changes of pregnancy aren’t studied in medical school (what a surprise), studies on this topic suspect that hormonal changes are responsible. Logically, we then assume that these same mechanisms are involved in food cravings and fads.

Popular belief also advances the theory of deficiencies that the body would overcome by directing the future mother towards foods rich in nutrients that she would lack. If these myths die hard, they have no scientific basis. Baptiste Beaulieu also identified a dozen studies that might otherwise explain these cravings:

The explanation for these cravings would be above all physiological (in order to increase the caloric intake for two) but also psychological, in fact, linked first to the stress inherent in pregnancy, but also due to a relative tolerance towards the eating behavior of pregnant women.

Baptiste Beaulieu, France Inter, 26 December 2022

When the unconscious overturns the injunctions

Throughout their lives, women are subject to the interference and harsh judgments of an outside world that imposes a self control permanent. This interference is all the more accentuated during pregnancy, since in the name of the child’s well-being, everyone is authorized to dissect and comment on the future mother’s actions and gestures.

Food cravings and pregnancy cravings would be physiological and would guarantee a high caloric intake, necessary for a good pregnancy. They would also be psychological and would allow women in particular to relieve stress and above all to eat exceptionally as they see fit:

Cravings for pregnancy are said to be one of the rare “excusable” events in a woman’s life where she is not watched over by society. These desires would then act as a relaxation of the superego within a corseted society that twists women’s arms.

Baptiste Beaulieu, France Inter, 26 December 2022

Knowingly or unknowingly, it’s time to take advantage of it, even if patriarchy is never far away and continues to require women to look at their figure, even in this very special moment of their lives.

Nor should we forget that beyond the aesthetic injunctions as subjective as they are toxic, sometimes grossly phobic, pregnancy still implies that we eat healthily to prevent the risk of diseases, such as gestational diabetes. But don’t worry, we won’t stop you from eating that slice of bread covered in fruity yogurt.

Feature photo credit: 2147792 by pixabay via Canva.